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I was in university back in 1981 when I first saw American Werewolf in London.

I saw it with a group of friends and we were all blown away by the way writer/director John Landis seamlessly crossed genre lines. The film is foremost a horror film but it’s also a poignant love story with a rich streak of comedy.

Landis had already scored a major hit directing National Lampoon’s Animal House in 1978 (although I would argue that film has plenty of misses).

The Blue Brothers came along two years later and this time, Landis co-wrote the script with Dan Aykroyd and directed. As writer and director, American Werewolf is wholly his baby.

The film opens to the dulcet tones of Bobby Vinton singing “Blue Moon.” Rather ingeniously, the tune is reprised twice in the film, once by the late, great soul singer Sam Cooke and, in the closing moments, in a rendition by American doo-wop band The Marcels.

Landis also cleverly employs two other moon-themed songs, “Moondance” by Van Morrison — for a steamy shower sex scene — and “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival — for the werewolf transition scene. You can’t fault the man’s taste in cool music.

The storyline is straightforward: two American college students backpacking through northern England encounter a village of superstitious yokels before they’re attacked by a werewolf on the moors.

David (David Naughton) survives while his pal Jack (Griffin Dunne) is savagely torn apart. Waking up in hospital in London, David meets the beautiful nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter), who lets him stay in her flat.

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And when the full moon arrives, he transforms into a werewolf courtesy of the amazing skills of Rick Baker, who went on to win the first ever Academy Award for outstanding achievement in makeup.

After more than three decades, the film holds up reasonably well, though there are a couple of issues.

Landis deserves top marks for boldness. The action scenes are well-executed and engrossing, with plenty of gore — including the chaotic climax in Piccadilly Circus. And who would have conceived of resurrecting Jack as a ghost, in declining states of decay, to warn his friend of the imminent dangers ahead?

The love story is quite moving and daring, especially for Agutter, a child star hoping to remake her image. The comedy is a tad out of sync with the story but still welcome.

My favourite line comes from Dr. Hirsch (John Woodvine), a physician who takes an interest in David’s plight: “I’m certain if there were a monster roaming around northern England, we’d have seen it on the telly.”

But there are a couple of moments that fall flat, including the moment the guys realize they’ve left the road and are lost on the moors. “Oops” is David’s lamely understated response.

The film never did much for the acting career of Naughton, who’s quite affecting as the doomed protagonist (and bravely bares his booty at several points).

Landis’s career, marred by a tragic accident on the set of Twilight Zone: the Movie two years later in 1983, peaked in the early 1980s and has mostly done television in recent years.

It’s rather a shame because American Werewolf demonstrated an innovative filmmaker with a bold imagination who was capable of delivering a howlingly good horror flick.

P.S. Don’t ever, under any circumstances watch the wretchedly misbegotten sequel, 1997’s American Werewolf in Paris.

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